


Cats and Jets

by sparklight



Category: Transformers (Dreamwave Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 16:35:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklight/pseuds/sparklight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jetfire picks up something during a battle shortly after surviving the confrontation with Sunstorm. Just a light little romp involving robots and pets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Put That Down, You Don't Know Where It's Been!

Jetfire had behaved strangely during the last part of the fight. Starscream scowled as he kept his scanners up, not sure why he was even _doing_ this. He hadn't expected to see Jetfire again after the confrontation with Sunstorm, given everything... And to roughly a few weeks later suddenly be in a battle that seemed to just have been _transplanted_ from Cybertron's past to Earth, now... Was kind of disorienting. Despite everything that had changed, the fact that Jetfire was back seemed to contrast how it all still remained the same. That really sort of made his circuits itch, because shouldn't there be some proof of the changes? It just made him angry that there didn't seem to be. 

Still didn't mean he wasn't going to check on Jetfire, who hadn't followed the Autobots for whatever reason; another point to the 'was behaving strangely'. Starscream was beginning to question his decision - let the idiot jet take care of himself - when he first got a blip on his scanner reading a Cybertronian precense, which minutes later resolved itself into Jetfire. Sitting cross-legged on the ground _kind of_ well-hidden from the nearby city, Jetfire was holding his hands up strangely... as if he was holding something in one of them, but Starscream could see nothing. Hesitating a moment, but then, and against his better judgment, Starscream landed. Planting his fists on his hips he was, all told, ready to blast the idiot for just _sitting there_ like a glitch and for no appearant reason at all.

"Starscream." Jetfire didn't even look up as he acknowledged the Seeker's presence some steps away from him, apparently more intent on whatever he had in his hands. "I haven't had time yet to adjust to access the local information network... internet, right? Would you happen to know what this is?" Jetfire finally splayed out his hands, revealing... a cat. A regular, grey and smudged white striped cat with a clear streak of white fur around its neck that made it look like it was wearing a collar. While Starscream stared, helm cocked, and looked from cat to Jetfire, incredulous not because Jetfire didn't know, or because it was a cat but... just _incredulous_ , the cat sat up, swiped a few licks down its back, stretched and started to wander around the hand. It looked _ridiculously_ tiny in Jetfire's huge hands.

"It's a keratin-covered, flesh-eating, four-legged, biurnal but mostly nocturnal Earth creature which houses its non-independent young inside of it, which burst out of the carrier in a shower of gore when ready, and then the young feed upon the the carrier's very vital fluids." It was a very bland, matter-of-fact description. It wasn't, even, technically a _lie_. Starscream shrugged, palms up, when Jetfire looked up at him, optics narrowed, from following the cat's progression from his hand up along his arm, jumping up angles and a steady tink-tink-tink from claws bettering purchase on smooth metal.

"Starscream, I'd appreciate a _non-embellished_ explanation," Jetfire said with a frown, focusing back at the cat which was now wandering around his helm, jumping up and down from various anglesand inclines, stopping every now and then to rub against white metal. Finally it jumped up on the throat protector, and took a last leap up on Jetfire's chin-guard. Head and ears thrust forward, its tail ending in a curl somewhat reminiscent of a question-mark, it touched its by-many-orders-of-magnitude-smaller nose against the tip of Jetfire's nasal ridge. Jetfire smiled, and Starscream resisted the urge to imitate a human gesture. 

It was all very nauseating.

"It's the _truthfactual_ explanation," Starscream sneered, arms crossed, helm angled away in a huffy show of haughtiness. Jetfire snorted faintly and looked back at Starscream, even if it was made slightly complicated by the fact that the cat had just stood up, stretched out with one forepaw resting against the space between lips and the tip of the nasal ridge, the other curiously batting at said ridge. Despite that, Jetfire cocked an upper optic ridge at the Seeker, not exactly able to decide between amusement or disbelief.

"I see. And what do _humans_ call it?"

Scrap. Caught. 

Starscream twitched, scowled at a tree some distance away and then let loose a long, drawn-out and very loud static sigh.

"To them, this tiny, predatory terror is known as a cat, and they keep it as a pet. A _pet_ , Jetfire! But then, considering humans are distantly related to cats, maybe that makes sense." Starscream shrugged again, tilting his helm back at Jetfire's definitely if mildly disbelieveing and confused expression. Whatever came from this, that singular expression, Jetfire's optics bright and narrowed just a shade, made it worth it.

" _Related_? They don't look---Ah, careful." Jetfire's tone of voice changed from a rebuke to a gentle murmur as he held up his hand to catch the cat when it jumped from the top of his chest-plates... for some reason. Jetfire wasn't _tiny_ after all. The creature let out its customary noise, and Jetfire once again smiled faintly and lifted a finger, somehow managing to rub just a small bit of plating against the cat's back. Starscream stared, scowled, and for some reason felt like shooting the stupid animal while it squirmed into the touch, back arching, and started to purr.

"Humans as well as cats, are mammals. They belong to the same... slightly related biological _family_. I'm amazed you don't know this yet!" Starscream resorted to needling Jetfire, resolutely not looking at the cat. Jetfire grimaced slightly and... was he _embarrassed_? Guilty over not knowing all there was to know, yet, about Earth and its species? Starscream couldn't _believe_ it, but it was amusing nonetheless and a smirk flickered over his dark faceplates.

"I... haven't had the... er, opportunity," Jetfire said, looking at the ground and then at the cat as he petted it as well as he could. To be honest, the lack of opportunity had come from thesuspicion of the Autobots. After how everything with the _Orion_ and Sunstorm had gone down, the Earth-bound Autobots had wanted to know _everything_... Only the arrival of the Prime along with - briefly - Ultra Magnus, who could confirm Operation: Containment as real, had resolved some issues. Not that Jetfire begrudged them their suspicions, since, as he understood it, Grimlock had been a particularly loose cannon lately...

"Oh, for... Stop that, Jetfire!" Starscream glared, throwing his arms up and stalked closer. "Let me guess, they were being all _suspicious_? Of course they were. Now stop looking like someone kicked your puppy and go connect to the internet, or something! Or find an electronic library, I don't care, download what information this species have on itself and their planet, and then start finding slag out _yourself_. Just... stop looking so _pathetic_!" Stabbing the larger jet in the front of his helm with a finger since he could do that as Jetfire was sitting down, Starscream glared into bright blue optics and then glared down at the purring cat.

"Also, get rid of that. You won't be able to _feed it_ in your cozy little city, and even if _you_ never would, someone'll probably accidentally step on it." In fact, Starscream felt like doing some "accidental" stepping himself, if only to have that purring ball of fluff be _quiet_. It was annoying. Jetfire tilted his helm, giving Starscream a flat, arch look.

"Well, er, yes? Autobot City would hardly be the right place in the long term for a native creature of Earth as tiny as this is. But since you said humans used them as pets, that means it either has, or needs, someone to take care of it. It would be irresponsible to have picked up in battle to save it from death merely to release it in the wild." Jetfire stood up, once again shielding the cat in both his hands. Picking up stray organic animals wasn't usually a thing he did; he probably wouldn't even have _noticed_ the little ball of fur if he hadn't just made a dive down on the Constructicons, seeing the cat dart away but not able to avoid the shockwave of his landing. "Thank you. I'll make sure it gets some humans to take care of it, but in the meantime, I suppose I'll have to do." With that, Jetfire stepped away so he could push off from the ground, leaving Starscream rather flabbergasted. Cats... didn't _need_ humans... or anyone! to take care of them---

::JETFIRE! Come back here and put that stupid animal back! You have _no idea_ where it's _been_!:: Unthinkingly, Starscream opened up an old frequency, well-used both before the war and before Jetfire... left... but untouched since then. All he got in reply was a low, dry chuckle. Starscream snarled and blasted the tree he'd earlier glared at into smoldering, charred bits. 

Blast that overgrown jet!


	2. Intervention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pet-owning adventures of Jetfire continues and Starscream decides an intervention is needed.

It didn't take long for Jetfire to realize that Starscream hadn't been entirely correct when it came to the cat. Yes, it was most certainly a "cat", but not of the subspecies Starscream had identified it as, but rather going by the common name of "wildcat". Or, using the human scientific classification system, _Felis silvestris_. He had, of course, intended to set the animal free when he found out that it didn't need someone to take care of it. At that point, however, he'd set it loose in the lab he'd been given, and the little animal proved curiously hard to catch.

"I really don't think this is an environment to which you're suitable to adapt to." Jetfire considered the room; workbench, various instruments, supplies... it was all suitably sized for him; not all of it, but most was, thankfully, closer to his size - or adjustable for that - than the instruments in the Orion's medbay had been. The point, either way, was that everything ought to be too big - and too non-organic - for a tiny mammal to hide effectively. 

"Obviously, however, _you_ think otherwise..." Jetfire considered the glint of light reflected from the tapetum lucidum in the corner between several supplies and a computer console after having unearthed the cat with his scanners. Getting the animal out might be slightly problematic. On the other hand... Jetfire stood up, set up some low-set and low-powered force-fields at any exit or supply closet to keep the cat inside the lab and left to get some sort of supplies and suitable nutrition for the cat. It would be easier to lure it out if it had somewhere more familiar to conduct its biological needs, especially as he would prefer not to terrify it, and Jetfire didn't really relish not knowing where it would leave its business. He could be patient and wait the cat out.

Somewhere between putting the (very large) earth and sand-filled box near the cat's chosen hiding spot and actually going out to get the animal something to eat, Jetfire had taken a completely different decision in regards to letting the animal out where it belonged, at least temporarily. While xenobiology wasn't any of the areas he had delved deeper in, observing the cat while it was here could be interesting. It wouldn't have been hard at all to set up motion-sensitive force-field anchors around the box, or cripple the smaller animals he brought in enough that they'd stay in place within a force field-trap... 

But the cat seemed so determined to hide, and it'd be more rewarding to have it come out to him on its own. He was also sure that would traumatize the animal a lot less than being forcibly trapped, so when he came back with two dazed squirrels and set them free - and pretended not to notice when the cat crept out and caught them, one after the other - Jetfire didn't set up anything anywhere that would capture the cat, merely keep it relatively safe and definitely inside the lab. It wouldn't be a good idea to have the cat loose in Autobot City; it would take too long for it to get out on its own, and there was the risk of it being stepped on, or otherwise accidentally killed. Just because the Cybertronians around had some basic cautionary overrides or alarms set to scanning results pertaining to humans now that Spike, Carly and their son Daniel had cautiously started to visit again didn't mean that all Earth creatures were included in those.

Staring down at the floor just inside the doorway (and behind the force-field barrier) a deca-cycle later, Jetfire considered the carcass of the rabbit he'd let loose earlier in the cycle. Looking up from the floor, Jetfire found the grey-striped cat was sitting nearly in the middle of lab, staring intently up at him.

"It's quite fascinating how many behaviours you display that belong to that of the common house cat," Jetfire murmured as he stepped over the small barrier, fetched a tool to more easily pick up the tiny, dead mammal and disposed of it, resolving to get the cat something more to eat, as it had decided he apparently needed feeding. The near-static feeling of something brushing against his armour had Jetfire pausing, the pressure of exactly 29lb landing with a soft thump at the top of his foot around a second later. The body-heat of the cat transferred down through its paws and from around it, adding to its "presence" in Jetfire's sensornet and the faintest of prickles against his field as the cat's innate charge reacted with his EM field. Diverting slightly more heat to be dumped through the surface circuitry in that foot, Jetfire ignored the purring animal as it wandered around and brushed against the metal, until a very distinctive sound was heard. 

That of metal being most cruelly abused by sharp cat claws. 

Well, it would have been "most cruelly" if the alloys used weren't so very different from any simple earthly one. Giving the cat a narrow stare, Jetfire leaned down and soon had it in his hand, carefully - somehow - petting it.

"Making comparisons between species concerning various behaviours is always a risky business and not proper use of observations, especially as I'm not a xenobiologist, but you _do_ kind of remind me---" Jetfire broke off as the door slid open, the cat got to its feet from where it had been lying on its back, hissing, and managed to jump, slide and sometimes fall the whole way down to the floor before it dashed away.

"... Jetfire?" Ratchet frowned as he looked after the streak that disappeared before he got a good look at it, accepting the small box the jet handed over automatically as he came over.

"You may want to look where you set your feet. There's a cat in here." Jetfire didn't even bother to look over at the medic while he checked calculations for another project on a computer.

"A cat? What is a _cat_ doing in here? And that was the largest cat I've ever seen!" Ratchet frowned and looked around again, optics narrowing at Jetfire's faint chuckle.

"I've been intending to release it, but I want to catch it without traumatizing it, so it's been proving a somewhat slow endeavour." That was a lie, of course. or rather a slight reconstruction of the truth. The cat had approached him on the third cycle, and stopped shying away on the sixth. But it was interesting, how it managed to make this space it's own.

"Well, whatever. As long as you don't name it---" Ratchet cut himself off, both of them looking at the door and listening to the comm. and sighing basically at the same time. The door slid shut behind the two cybertronians as they left to prepare for the upcoming battle, the cat sliding out underneath a sample container of something, wandering over into the middle of the room again, and sitting down to clean itself.

 **********  
Starscream wasn't sure what Megatron was waiting for. Their battles had turned into strange half-measures, stay-hit-run with no rhyme and reason to when they actually fought it out and when they, seemingly for no reason, retreated either before there was any battle at all, or at some point with no actual reason for retreat. It was exceedingly frustrating, and only the fact that Megatron had come back to Earth a lot... sharper, more like he'd been early on, stopped Starscream from doing anything. Well, that and the fact that he remembered perfectly well the feeling of the shot from Megatron in gun-mode and fired by Soundwave going through him not that long ago. For the moment, however, they seemed to stay put, but the moment Jetfire's overgrown frame came into view, all Starscream could think of was Jetfire flying away from him with that stupid cat he'd picked up. 

It had just come up. 

He had not been stewing over being basically stood up on as Jetfire left the conversation since they'd had it nearly a human month ago. 

No, not at all. 

Which was also why he wasn't---

//I see your engine hasn't clogged with cat hair, so I assume you got ri--- _released_ it?// The channel he'd just opened - the same he'd used when trying to get Jetfire to dump the cat a deca-cycle ago - fuzzed softly with static before there was a full connection.

//... That cat is much too small to be able to clog my engines in merely a deca-cycle, especially since my systems have hardly ceased to maintain themselves and clean out such things as foreign materials in my engine.// If Jetfire was annoyed or surprised at being addressed during a battle, it wasn't at all audible, even if he took a moment or two to respond, during which Starscream resisted the urge to snap over the line again.

//Answer. the question, Jetfire! It wouldn't surprise me if you've managed to squish it, however, considering the size difference// Starscream said over the line, sneering, even as he barrel-rolled and let loose a salvo of shots at the nearest grounded Autobot.

//I haven't _stepped on it_ , Starscream. It's still in the lab for now. Since it went and hid while I found out basic information about it and it seemed determined to make itself at home, I thought it'd be interesting to find out how a creature such as that could adapt to an environment it's not at all suited to, with minimal adjustments by myself.// Jetfire dodged shots, let that monster of a rifle - currently acting as a cannon mounted underneath his frame - belch out energy towards Soundwave and some of his cassettes on the ground and then peeled away to avoid Thundercracker and Skywarp.

//... You _kept it_?//Starscream couldn't believe this. Leave the jet alone to the Autobots, and he picked up minibots and small, fluffy animals, apparently! //It's a wild, tiny mammal, Jetfire! You're an overgrown cybertronian jet with too much curiosity in your processor, even if you're not a xenobiologist! And... does the Autobots know you're experimenting on an Earth native?// Starscream's voice over the comm dropped from sharp and short to sly, grinning to himself mentally as he couldn't do it physically in altmode.

//I am not _experimenting_ on it. With, perhaps, and the surroundings are as much a part of the experiment as the cat itself. I am feeding it and it has a place to perform its biological functions. Further, it's only temporary--//

//A deca-cycle 'temporary'? Jetfire, you've become soft. And stop that supposedly scientific blathering, no one's interested!// Starscream sneered to himself and immediately cut the comm to Jetfire after that, displeased. 

He couldn't believe this. 

Apparently that idiot jet needed an intervention.

 *********  
An intervention that clearly meant breaking into Jetfire's lab. It wasn't that hard really; the building the lab sat in was on the edge of the city, and the lab was easily accessible for a flight frame, had indeed been made to be so. Starscream walked down the short, open corridor to the door, eyed the lock and just used the null-ray to disrupt the power to the lock. It was protoform's play to get in, partly because the security right here was very predictable, and easily avoided, and... Yes. Stepping over the force-field he'd only just seen before he'd stepped right into it and looking around the large, well-planned room, Starscream could see no surveillance equipment around. How Jetfire had managed that, he didn't know.

"Heere kitty. Come on, I'm sure you're used to that overgrown drone muttering things all the time, so come on out," Starscream snapped, optics roaming the room, but seeing nothing. Well, it didn't matter. He had scanners. Starting them up, Starscream took another step inside, and caught something under his foot. Freezing, he took half a step back, staring at the floor and then lifting up his leg to view the underside of his foot.

"I am going to blast you into atoms!" Snarling, Starscream scrubbed his foot on the floor before stalking around the room, following the rise and fall of readings, faceplates darker than usual. That little beast had somehow managed to puke on the floor between his looking around and turning away. On some level Starscream knew that that wasn't likely; most probably the cat had vomited right before he came in, but he'd stepped in that disgusting blob of organic abdominal oral waste, so clearly it had been planned. He could still feel the residue of that mess on his metal, a sticky organic film with who knew how many billions of micro-organisms crawling over it... He'd need to get his foot disinfected and cleaned when this was over and done with--- 

Ah.

" _Found_ you. Did you think you could _hide_?" Starscream knelt down, glaring into the shadowed, narrow space between the corner of the wall and the instrument and got a hiss in reply. Sneering at the cat, Starscream decided that he could sacrifice himself, since Jetfire had clearly gotten his processor addled by stray cat hair or something, and he had already had his foot contaminated. With gusty whoosh of expelled air from his intakes, Starscream reached his hand inside, aiming on grabbing the tiny creature between two fingers or something and just press them together.

"Blast it---" The gray streak somehow avoided his hand, dashing out from its safe hiding space and between his knees on the floor. Swearing, Starscream got to his feet and whirled around, launching himself after the pest who somehow managed to veer sharply off in time, unbalancing Starscream as he set his foot down into what must be--

"You insufferable, miserable ANIMAL!" The sand and earth slid under Starscream's foot due to his weight, and he was disgustingly relieved that no one was around to see his ungainly flailing before the box met the wall and then he managed to get his balance in check again.

Whirling around, Starscream snarled. 

The cat hissed right back and then yowled, all of it puffed up and back arched. Engine growling, Starscream nonetheless smirked and raised his arm, and then paused. If he used his null-ray in here, where it was closer to the rest of the building where other mechs might be moving around, someone might hear. 

Blast it. 

Optics narrowing, Starscream stared down at the fluffy annoyance which was hissing at him and then took half a step forward. The cat skittered backwards, back arched, legs stiff, its claws tinkling against the metal floor before it suddenly dashed forward. The speed and suddenness had Starscream - absolutely not, it was just a glitch in the signal from processor to his legs! - jerking back before he surged forward, but by then the cat was at his feet and then it---

"What the--! Get off! What do you... GAH!" Starscream most effectively brushed his hands against his armour in wide arcs or slammed his hands down in his pursuit of a ridiculously tiny quadruped mammal that shouldn't be able to work its way up his chassis like it was. Primus, what had Jetfire done, it was just a cat, it shouldn't be able to do this! The door opened at the same moment the noise of a null-ray powering up sung through the lab, and Starscream froze, his grimace slowly slackening and then he glanced to the side.

"Starscream? What are you..." Jetfire trailed off, staring at the picture before him; Starscream standing almost in the middle of the lab, right arm raised, null-ray powered up, spitting mad cat with arched back on top of the null-ray near its end, the improvised "litter-box" (more like the size of a small room in a human apartment), partly emptied with sand and earth scattered around it and the box itself shuffled up against the wall.

"I assume there's some sort of _explanation_ for this?" Jetfire said, voice dry as he passed through the door, gently scooping the tiny, angry animal into one hand and sitting down by his computer. Starscream grimaced and crossed his arms.

"You're clearly letting that little pest dictate your life, no matter this stupid experiment. Also, what did you do to the cat, it managed to get up on my arm by itself!" Starscream huffed, glaring from Jetfire's blank faceplates and cocked helm, down at the cat that was hidden by Jetfire's curled hand.

"Done? I haven't 'done' anything to it. It merely learned how to get up on my frame mostly the whole way by itself. It was very interesting."

"Interes--- This is what I mean! It's a _cat_ , Jetfire, not a complex equation or a shiny rock or scenario or whatever it is that interests you these days!" Starscream's glare narrowed as Jetfire got up, nodding.

"I see what you mean. Yes, I know it's merely a very tiny mammal, Starscream," Jetfire hummed quietly in agreement as he came up beside the Seeker, who sneered at him and then moved, not about to stand still with Jetfire this close; he had, after all, broken into Jetfire's lab.

"I don't think you do. You're letting this... thing take up too much of your time," Starscream said, helm held high, strutting in front of Jetfire as they walked down the corridor.

"Possibly. I'm letting it go in another deca-cycle at the most. I promise to let you dispose of it if I haven't released it by then." Jetfire brushed a few fingers over the nearest shoulder and edge of wing, making Starscream twitch and step away, even if he'd briefly flicked his wing _into_ the brief touch.

"You're an _idiot_ , Jetfire. You're going to regret letting this blasted thing go on for as long as it has!" Starscream shook his helm and tossed himself off the edge, transforming as he was up in the air and.... Wait. What was he doing out here?!

//Thank you for the visit, Starscream, but it would probably be for the best if you left now to minimise any... complications.// Jetfire's murmur was - but shouldn't be - annoyingly soothing, and Starscream growled and gunned his thrusters.

//Don't come whining to me when _you_ are the one who steps in cat vomit, Jetfire.//


End file.
